Page 58 - ShowSight - May 2020

The life of every purposefully-bred pup begins with a breeder. Photo by Dan Sayers.
on the Internet and intuition. Changes of heart from puppy buyers would have been inevitable as people’s working and living conditions changed. The likelihood of having several puppies remain at home for the better part of the year with nowhere to go would have been inevitable. Or would it?
One of the aftereffects of social distancing for many has been the redis- covery of things that were being taken for granted. During a pandemic, “family time” is no longer limited to an annual vacation. Instead, it is experi- enced 24/7 with everyone living, learning and working under the same roof. Under these conditions, each family member has to figure out the best way to be together while respecting the privacy needs of everyone else. Gone—for now—are those “crazy busy” days; running from home to school, to work, to the gym/ball park/dance recital/soccer match/supermarket only to return back home for the demands of homework/dinner/meal prep/laundry/bath- ings/bedtime stories and a little “me time.” Many of us have discovered that the go-go lifestyles of our recent past left little room for life’s simple plea- sures, including the joy of having a family dog. COVID-19 has, quite liter- ally, forced many of us to “be still” just long enough to consider the things that really matter in life. For some heretofore overburdened parents and pro- fessionals, the idea of having a dog around the house no longer seems like an imposition. In fact, a dog can seem more like a blessing than a burden.
At the height of the pandemic, two colleagues of mine made the deci- sion to bring a new dog into their homes. Despite the general atmosphere of uncertainty (or perhaps because of it), they determined that now was the right time. One of the new owners is a single architect living in a renovated garage in Philadelphia. His new dog is his first. The second owner is a mar- ried suburban woman whose daughter had been despondent since the death of the family’s previous dog. In both cases, plans to get a dog had previously been put on hold due to an admitted lack of time for training and the like. However, since they’ve found themselves under “house arrest” for several
weeks with no end in sight, both coworkers decided to reconsider their timetable. (Why wait for circum- stances to improve when the best time to get a dog could be right now?) So with their minds made up to bring home a canine companion, they went to the place where everyone looks for a dog today; they sat down at their computer and searched the Internet.
Despite my appeals to consider specific breeds that might be suitable for their particular environments and lifestyles, both colleagues searched for—and found— a “rescue dog.” Jeremy found his girl on a New York shelter’s website. “She was brought up from Tennessee to Staten Island,” he told me of the “Beagle/hound” mix that can’t keep her nose off the ground. (I won- dered aloud if he’d considered in his selection process a hound’s predilection for following its nose. He had not.) Savannah was no less oblivious in her choice of a “Chihuahua/Pit” mix as companion for her four-year- old. “I hope he’s good with kids,” she said uneasily. “But he’s so darned cute!” Interestingly, Savannah told me that she’d previously filled out 30 online applica- tions without receiving a single reply. However, in the middle of an international health crisis, her husband received a response within 15 minutes of sending his first and only email inquiry. “We’ll have him in New Jersey on May 8th,” he was told by the shelter worker/ dog broker in Texas. Is it any wonder that shelters across America have emptied so quickly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic?
Truth be told, I’m only somewhat dismayed at my coworkers’ decisions. After all, I had no puppies to offer them. (Even if I did, their particular home environ- ments are not really suitable for my breed.) But there are plenty of recognized dog breeds that are ideal for single city dwellers and suburban families with small children. The trouble is that many of these breeds are hard to find today—even on the Internet. Many breeds have become well-kept secrets among their breeders who often view themselves as guardians and gatekeep- ers rather than preservationists and promoters. Oh, say what you will about how garish it is to advertise pup- pies online, but make no mistake; this is where people are searching for dogs in the 21st century—even in the middle of a global coronavirus outbreak. They are not heading down to the local library to do a little research and they’re not checking the classified section of their local newspaper. They are Googling. While we’ve all been busy running around show rings, the World Wide Web has become both the local library and the local paper. The (virtual) marketplace is where today’s puppy buyers go to find their next canine companion. It’s high time that every dedicated purebred dog breeder admits that we must compete with rescue organizations for the hearts and minds of dog lovers everywhere.
When my beautiful, typey, health-tested girl with a CHIC number and an AKC championship title comes in season again, I’m going to be better prepared. I plan to breed her no matter the circumstances of my per- sonal schedule or those of the world around me. (I also plan to present her puppies and her pedigree online.) For the sake of the breed that I love and the sport that I hold dear, I’m choosing to breed.
TO BREED OR NOT BREED?
56 | SHOWSIGHT MAGAZINE, MAY 2020